President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[falafel]

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That's funny to me. As I read his comments, he can't be bothered to worry about the "End Times" because he "has to be good to his wife, he has to be good to his kids, he's got to be a good VP of the US". Almost like Ugh! All this God stuff is getting in the way of my daily life.

[dabrockster]

Recent FB from Rep. Adam Kinzibger:

Truthfully, I also think many were also watching Biden fumble his last years in office and wonder the same thing. Precedent was set and neither party or the stooges for the President would invoke this. Where is our moral and ethical leaders.. There are none. They all seek power with whatever means necessary.

I was the first sitting GOP congressman to call for the 25th Amendment in 2021. What’s happening now scares me just as much.

Sunday night, the President of the United States sat somewhere with a phone in his hand and posted an AI-generated video to Truth Social that showed an airman’s view out of a cockpit window as explosions rip across an oil field below. The caption, in his own words: “Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT”

Kharg Island is real. It processes roughly ninety percent of Iran’s oil exports and is home to nearly twenty thousand people, most of them oil workers. It is also, as of Sunday night, not the place where anything actually happened.

The real strikes that day hit Iranian minelaying forces and rocket launchers near the Strait of Hormuz, more than four hundred miles away. Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at two American bases in Jordan; Jordanian air defenses intercepted them before anyone was hurt. That is the actual war. Real ships, real minefields, real missiles arcing toward real Americans in real time.

And the Commander in Chief spent that night generating a fantasy version of it for his own feed.

I am not a doctor. But I am a twenty-year Air Force veteran who flew combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, I served twelve years in Congress, and I sat on the committee that investigated January 6th. I have spent a long time studying exactly how this president behaves under pressure, in war, and at the edges of his own judgment.

And I am telling you, as plainly as I know how, that what happened Sunday night belongs to a pattern that should worry every single American, regardless of party.

Because this isn’t the first time. In April, he posted an AI image of himself as Jesus Christ, then deleted it after even his own allies recoiled in horror. A few weeks later he was posting AI photos of himself and his Cabinet swimming in the repainted Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Around the same time, fabricated images of him posing with John F. Kennedy and “saving” George Washington made their way onto his feed. And just last month, before Sunday’s post, he was already circulating AI images of Kharg Island being bombarded.

This is not a man occasionally reaching for a meme. This is a sitting president who, with increasing frequency, appears to be narrating his reality through imagery he invented rather than through what is actually happening on the ground.

Here is why that scares me:

The 25th Amendment exists for exactly one purpose: a mechanism for the country to keep functioning when the person holding the nuclear codes is, for whatever reason, unable to reliably discharge the duties of the office.

We have used it before for something as routine as a colonoscopy, transferring power to the Vice President for the length of an anesthesia. We built an entire constitutional process around the idea that even a few hours of impaired judgment at the top is too dangerous to leave unaddressed.

And yet we have now watched this president attempt to overturn an election, survive two impeachments, and generate fictional footage of an active war he is actually prosecuting and not once has that mechanism so much as been whispered about by the people with the actual authority to invoke it.

I know something about being the first to say this out loud. On January 7th, 2021, the day after the Capitol was stormed, I became the first Republican in Congress to call for the 25th Amendment to be invoked. I said it with a heavy heart because a line had been crossed that our country could never go back from.

I said at the time that the president had become unmoored, not just from his duty, not just from his oath, but from reality itself. I took no pleasure in saying it then, but I said it then because I believed the country needed someone at the helm who was tethered to what was actually happening, and because our enemies were watching to see whether we would do anything about it when one of our own cast aside our Constitution.

Our enemies, especially Iran, are watching again. So is every adversary calculating whether an American president’s public statements bear any relationship to American military reality. When the Commander in Chief cannot distinguish, in public, on the record, between a real strike and a video generated for effect, some on his staff will call it a messaging problem. In reality, it's a fitness problem, and it's exactly what the 25th Amendment was written to address.

But the Constitution does not let me, or likely anyone reading this piece, invoke it. It requires the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet to take action. It requires initiative from the people who see him every day, who brief him, who watch him up close in ways the rest of us cannot. They are the only ones with the authority to act, and so far, every one of them has chosen silence.

Donald Trump has proven over and over again that he is not fit to be President of The United States. While it is unlikely that those around the president will suddenly have a change of heart, we cannot let the people of this country forget that what we are seeing is exactly what the 25th Amendment was created for.

[Northwestcoug]

Abandoning the constitution and morality also has practical effects:

The new approach abandons that proven model in favor of lethal strikes that destroy not only vessels but also the evidence and intelligence needed to dismantle criminal organizations. Dead suspects cannot be questioned. Destroyed vessels cannot be searched. Prosecutors cannot build cases from evidence that no longer exists. Rather than dismantling cartels, the strategy risks eliminating only replaceable operators while leaving the criminal networks that recruit, finance, and direct them intact.

Nor is there compelling evidence that the strategy is succeeding. Public reportingindicates that while trafficking routes briefly shifted and cocaine prices temporarily fluctuated, the availability, purity, and price of cocaine in the United States have largely returned to pre-operation levels. If those indicators are correct, the campaign has achieved little lasting strategic effect despite its extraordinary use of military force.

The policy also threatens relationships that have taken decades to build. Maritime law enforcement depends on intelligence sharing, mutual trust, and legal cooperation among partner nations. Already, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands have curtailed intelligence sharing with the United States or put caveats on the use of the intelligence they provide because of these unlawful strikes. It remains unclear to what extent governments in the region are consulted before individual strikes. If those relationships erode, the United States risks sacrificing the very alliances that have made successful maritime interdiction possible.

https://www.justsecurity.org/155570/americas-war-drug-smugglers-sea-unlawful-failing/

[frank ryan]

Abandoning the constitution and morality also has practical effects:



https://www.justsecurity.org/155570/...awful-failing/

This administration is really excelling at making us less safe.

[frank ryan]

Trump's crazy acolyte in Argentina is asserting that the Falkands are their territory. If conflict breaks between the UK and Argentina, I'm sure Trump back Milei.

[frank ryan]

That's funny to me. As I read his comments, he can't be bothered to worry about the "End Times" because he "has to be good to his wife, he has to be good to his kids, he's got to be a good VP of the US". Almost like Ugh! All this God stuff is getting in the way of my daily life.

He's a slimy accelerationist ass.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Trump's crazy acolyte in Argentina is asserting that the Falkands are their territory. If conflict breaks between the UK and Argentina, I'm sure Trump back Milei.

I am kind of with Argentina on this one.

[frank ryan]

I am kind of with Argentina on this one.

They fought a war over this in the 80s, and the residents have always the right to join Argentina by referendum but never have.

Whats you hot take on it?

[Moliere]

They fought a war over this in the 80s, and the residents have always the right to join Argentina by referendum but never have.

Whats you hot take on it?

England v Argentina 1-2 | Result, Stats & Highlights | Semi-final | FIFA World Cup 2026™ | FIFA

[Jeff Lebowski]

They fought a war over this in the 80s, and the residents have always the right to join Argentina by referendum but never have.

Whats you hot take on it?

They have fought over who owns it for a few hundred years. One of the last vestiges of British imperialism.

[frank ryan]

They have fought over who owns it for a few hundred years. One of the last vestiges of British imperialism.

Not really

It's been British longer than the US has been a nation. The population overwhelmingly wants to stay with the Brits.

Also, there has only 1 war for the Falklands.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Not really

It's been British longer than the US has been a nation. The population overwhelmingly wants to stay with the Brits.

Also, there has only 1 war for the Falklands.

Yeah, wrong. Spain forced the Brits out in 1770 and ruled it until 1811. After gaining independence from Spain, Argentina asserted sovereignty in 1820 and established a settlement. Brits returned in 1833 and took over.

[Bo Diddley]

I think the Falklands dispute should go with option #3. Let the people who live there determine their own future.

When Britain took control of the islands nearly 200 years ago, there was no indigenous population there that was displaced. Today, roughly 3,700 people live in the Falklands, and they have overwhelmingly expressed a desire to remain under British sovereignty.

Whatever the historical arguments over British and Argentine claims, I think the rights of the people actually living there, and their right to self determination, should be the most important factor.

[frank ryan]

I think the Falklands dispute should go with option #3. Let the people who live there determine their own future.

When Britain took control of the islands nearly 200 years ago, there was no indigenous population there that was displaced. Today, roughly 3,700 people live in the Falklands, and they have overwhelmingly expressed a desire to remain under British sovereignty.

Whatever the historical arguments over British and Argentine claims, I think the rights of the people actually living there, and their right to self determination, should be the most important factor.

So am I. In 2013 they held a referendum with high voter turnout, in the 90 percent range of eligible voters.

They had over 1500 voters who voted to stay and exactly 3 votes for joining Argentina

[falafel]

I think the Falklands dispute should go with option #3. Let the people who live there determine their own future.

When Britain took control of the islands nearly 200 years ago, there was no indigenous population there that was displaced. Today, roughly 3,700 people live in the Falklands, and they have overwhelmingly expressed a desire to remain under British sovereignty.

Whatever the historical arguments over British and Argentine claims, I think the rights of the people actually living there, and their right to self determination, should be the most important factor.

Hear hear!